Initial comments are focusing on the relatively low specs compared to other tablets, and the decision to branch Android so completely that it’s almost like a different OS. There’ll be no access to Google’s Android marketplace at all. Everything, including the app market, will be Amazon.

This, though, is why I think it will be massive. Amazon’s strengths are the trust they have with their customers and their understanding of the importance of pricing. As much as I wish that the standard for ebooks had become non-DRM epubs that could be produced and sold by anyone, the sad fact is that Amazon won that battle. The only ebooks that sell in significant quantities are Amazon’s proprietary Kindle format, and they can only be sold by Amazon.

Now – if this different Android OS does mean creating different apps for different Android tablets, I think those who make tablet book apps will code for Amazon first. A ‘Google marketplace flavour’ conversion will be viewed as optional, and dependent on cost. (Apple will still do everything it can, I think it is safe to say, to make the production of separate Android and iOS apps as awkward as possible.)

Why do I think this? Well, it’s Amazon. Amazon are very easy to underestimate, as those who dismissed the Kindle will know. Amazon started a war with the publishing industry, and it won. True, the publishing industry failed to turn up, or even notice, but that doesn’t change what happened. And what happened is very instructive.

Once upon a time, publishers were the gate keepers between readers and authors, and all was well with the world. All authors had to do was write. The publishers took care of selection, distribution, marketing, editing, proofing, design and production, and this justified their position and their long lunches. Publishing had a high barrier to entry, so things looked secure. In time, publishers gradually pushed much of the marketing responsibility onto authors, meaning that they had to both write and establish themselves as some form of ‘brand’, but things still looked secure for publishers.

Then came Amazon, undercutting the high street and giving the reader all the ‘long tail’ titles they couldn’t find in shops. This initially seemed great for publishers, but the cost was the collapse of much of their distribution chain when the high street book shops started to disappear. And then came Kindle, which removed the problem of production and let the market handle the tricky ‘selection’ part of publishing. What, then, had publishers to offer in order to justify their role as middle men and gatekeepers? All that remained of that original list was proofing and design, and those could easily be outsourced to independent illustrators and editors. Suddenly, all publishers had to offer was credibility, and not all writers needed that. Then, and only then, Amazon began relationships with authors and stated to publish themselves.

Publishers are now adapting like crazy. They still have a future, of course, but even the most optimistic will admit that their future will be very different to their past.

And how did Amazon win this silent war? Because of their relationship with the customers, and their understanding of the importance of price. Time and time again they gave us punters what we wanted, cheaper than anywhere else, quickly and without fuss. They earnt our trust, to the extent that ‘looking on Amazon’ is something that now automatically follows the emergence of the thought in our heads that we’d quite like to buy a book.

How will the market for tablet books change now that Amazon are joining in? It is easy to imagine examples where Amazon would behave differently to Apple. Consider Apple’s announcement that they’d be taking 30% of the price of in-app purchases, for example. We don’t know what Amazon will do here, but if they don’t help themselves to such a chunk, or if they take significantly less, then all the extra magazines, comics and other content sold in-app will be noticeably cheaper on Amazon than on Apple.

Consider also the messy way that most (but not all) Apple tablet books are sold as apps rather than iBooks. Will Amazon find a more elegant way to organise everything, and help us find them in its store? We’re just guessing at this stage, but past performance suggests that they’ll do better than the mess that is iTunes. Amazon know how to help us shop.

Apple, of course, have a powerful glamour – in both the modern and the occult meanings of that world. It did look like they had the tablet book market sewn up, and that all tablet books would need to be coded for iOS. But given a Kindle tablet at $250, we now have a genuine competitor. With Apple and Amazon being the type of companies that they are, is that a good thing? Only time will tell, but until then, I for one welcome our new Amazonian overlords.